For a moment, the entire world was loud and red – a bright, stinging red that filled her shut eyes and ringing ears. Her leg felt red, too, red and angry. She remembered how to breathe, and pulled in a hard lungful. She opened her eyes. The world was not red, and neither was her leg, but something was very, very wrong with it. There was no deep blood and nothing poking out, but when she tried to stand, she screamed. She saw the sky as she did so. It was further away than it had been before, a bright circle out of reach. She had landed in one of the holes.
My leg’s broken, she thought. She’d never had a broken bone before, but somehow she knew it all the same. ‘Fuck,’ she said out loud, her breath speeding up. ‘Stars, fucking . . . shit.’ She made ugly sounds as she tried to sit up, moaning and whining and choking. She looked up, around, all over. Even if she’d been able to stand straight and reach up, the hole was taller than her, and there was nothing to climb on – no rocks, no crates, nothing.
She was so fucked.
‘You’re okay,’ she said, her voice coming out wrong. ‘You’re okay. Come on. Come on, it’s okay.’ But it wasn’t okay. Her hands were scraped and bruised, as were her arms, her face, everything. And her leg – stars, her leg. She pulled off her satchel and the weapon pack – both looking entirely the wrong shape – so she could lie flat on the ground. She put her hands over her face, trying to breathe, trying to stop shaking. What the hell was she going to do?
For a long while, there was nothing she could do but lie there and hurt. Her mind had finally started to turn to can I even climb out of here with a broke-ass leg when she heard something – somethings – approach the hole. Jane held her breath. A dog came into view over the edge – a lean, sharp-eyed dog. There was a scrabbling sound behind it, a weirdly playful sound. Jane couldn’t believe it: two freckled pups, no longer than her arm from tip to tail. The big one had to be their mother. Jane had never seen pups up close. She knew better than to go into dog dens. They were too dark, too closed in. Jane and the mother stared at each other, neither making a sound. The mother broke her gaze first, looking at her paws, the sides of the hole, the drop to the bottom. She was figuring it out, just like Jane had been, trying to see if there was a safe way back up. Jane’s mouth went dry. All dogs were kinda scrawny, but she could see the ribs on this one. She could see the ribs on the pups, too. Where was their pack? Were they alone? Didn’t matter. This was a problem, a big fucking problem. Even if she could manage the climb out, she couldn’t pull herself up with her weapon in hand, and – wait. Wait. She thought back to the moment she’d hit the ground. There had been so much noise, so much crunching . . . She grabbed the weapon rod and hit the switch. Nothing happened. She hit it again, again. She could hear the soft click of the firing mechanism inside, but nothing. Nothing. Her leg wasn’t the only broken thing.
She let out a yell from the very bottom of her belly, clenching her fists against her face. She could hear the pups startle. She turned her head to them, sharp and furious. ‘What? You scared? Raaaaaah!’ She yelled again. ‘Go away! Get out of here! Go! Go away!’ She threw a rock; it didn’t make it out. The pups backed away out of view. The mother looked wary, but she stood her ground, ears laid back, fur bristling.
Jane grabbed her satchel, torn and dirty from the fall. She pulled out the jerky she’d packed that morning. ‘Smell that?’ she yelled, shoving the handful of dried meat in the mother’s direction. ‘Huh? You know what that is?’ Jane took it between her teeth and ripped out a messy chunk. ‘Mmm! That’s you! That’s your pups! You’re fucking delicious, did you know that?’ The words sounded good, but Jane shook as she said them. She thought about the empty click of the weapon. She thought about the shuttle, half a morning’s walk away. She thought about Owl.
She thought about Owl.
If the dogs could smell the jerky, they didn’t care. The pups rejoined their mother, who had sat down, muscles tight, head lowered into the hole. She was staying put. Jane was, too. She didn’t have a choice.
She and the dog stared at each other all day, despite more thrown rocks, despite Jane yelling until her throat was raw. They stared at each other until the sun went down. And even after that, Jane could see the mother’s eyes watching her in the dark, glinting green in the moonlight. Patient. Waiting. Hungry.
SIDRA